The invention relates to a module for a coating apparatus for granular bodies, preferably tablets or pills.
It is possible by means of drum coaters to apply a functional layer in the form of a film layer to pressed tablet cores. This functional layer generally consists of water-soluble monomers in which removal of water and polyreaction are followed by chain formation to give homo- and copolymers. The task of this functional layer is to protect an active ingredient present in the tablet core from the action of light or oxygen, to prevent premature dissolution due to excessively high ambient humidity during storage, or to allow the active ingredient to show its effect only in particular zones of the digestive tract. Very high quality demands are therefore made on functional layers of this kind.
There are various embodiments of drum coaters for the coating to be carried out. They can essentially be divided into batch coaters and continuous drum coaters. While an application of functional layers by means of batch coaters no longer constitutes a technical challenge, there are still considerable problems in the case of continuous drum coaters in applying a functional layer with uniform thickness on the surface of the tablet. Document WO 2006/108280 A1 describes, for example, a continuous drum coater that achieves the very high demands on the layer thickness distribution as necessary, for example, for stomach-resistant film coatings only with a considerable degree of difficulty, if at all.
It is the case in conventional drum coaters that the latter are in each case available only in a single configuration, and there is no possibility of adapting them to different customer requirements. It is generally the case that a customer obtains a coating apparatus specially configured for the customer in accordance with the customers order. The respective coating apparatuses in this case are frequently one-offs, which increases the production costs and reduces the flexibility for an operator. With the known coating apparatuses, only an identical procedure for the formation of coatings is ever possible. Changed conditions during use cannot be taken into consideration.